TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: A day after the surprise demolition of the religious structure in the SGPDA market, PDA members on Tuesday pushed the blame on the district Collector, South for Monday’s demolition operation.
The PDA’s surprise stand comes a day after acting district Collector, Venancio Furtado maintained that the demolition operation was carried out as per the request of the SGPDA. In fact, Venancio told Herald on Tuesday that his office had made arrangements for the demolition squad to raze down the religious structure as per the requisition made by the PDA.
PDA Chairman, MLA Rajan Naik firmly denied that the PDA was involved in the demolition of religious structure. “It was the district Collector who initiated the action as per the Supreme Court order. The Collector only took support of the SGPDA Member Secretary to execute the action”, Rajan said.
Even a senior member of the SGPDA and former Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat maintained that the district Collector is the authority under the Supreme Court to initiate action against religious structures in public places.
“The Supreme Court clearly says that after the day of the judgement, the Collector will be held accountable for any religious structure in public places. We the PDA members discussed the issue of the religious structure at our meeting, we deemed fit to inform the district Collector that such a thing has happened in the PDA complex”, Kamat said, while trying to pass the buck on the district Collector.
Incidentally, PDA Member, MLA Vijai Sardesai said the PDA members have no role in the demolition operation. He said he was not even aware of the demolition taken up by the Collector, adding “may be it was the administrative decision”.
Surprisingly, Acting district Collector, Venancio Furtado told Herald that the PDA Member Secretary had made a requisition for the demolition squad to remove the religious structure. “The PDA had asked for the demolition squad within a short time, but my office could not arrange the squad in a short time since many departments, including PWD, police, Magistrate etc are involved in a demolition exercise,” Venancio said, while firmly stating that Monday’s demolition was carried out as per the request from the SGPDA.
